UAW vice president General Holiefield speaks during the 35th UAW Constitutional Convention in June 2010. / Rashaun Rucker/Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press Business Writer

General Holiefield, vice president of the United Auto Workers union speaks during the Special Convention on Collective Bargaining held in March at Cobo Center in Detroit. / Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press

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UAW Vice President General Holiefield will step down in June, when union members will choose his successor, the union announced today, ending a period of speculation among Chrysler workers about their future leadership.

Questions about Holiefield’s future have been swirling for weeks after the abrupt retirement of one of his top aides, James Hardy. UAW President Bob King said publicly last month that Holiefield had not left the union and that he was still vice president of the Chrysler department.

“I leave with cherished memories of more than 40 years as a member and leader of this great union,” 60-year-old Holiefield said in a statement. “My goal has always been to lift people out of poverty and to give them a better standard of living.”

The union announced Holiefield’s decision not to seek a third term. The decision comes as the UAW’s Reuther Caucus prepares to disclose nominees for the top leadership positions Thursday. The chosen slate of candidates will run for election at the union’s Constitutional Convention in June.

The slate will include nominees to succeed King, and four vice presidents and a secretary treasurer.

The Free Press reported last month that Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams, 60, is in line to become the UAW’s next president. King, 67, is too old to be eligible for re-election under union bylaws.

There may be opposing candidates who step forward to run at the convention, but every candidate nominated by the Reuther Caucus has been ratified by rank-and-file members since 1970.

Williams has been secretary-treasurer since 2010 and served as a regional director based in the Chicago area for 10 years before that.

Holiefield’s retirement culminates a turbulent tenure.

In the summer of 2011, just as negotiations with Chrysler were beginning, Holiefield was arrested in Macomb Township for a domestic dispute. His wife at the time, who also works for the UAW, decided not to press charges. Marlene Holiefield is listed in a 2011 summary of the Chrysler contract as a UAW coordinator. The two are now divorced; he remarried.

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Holiefield also drew criticism from some Chrysler workers because he publicly supported a new work schedule at Chrysler plants that many employees dislike. The new schedule has two of the three work crews working every Saturday on a four-day per week, 10-hour shifts.

Chrysler employees also complain that they can’t carry seniority from one plant to another when they are transferred, a concession in the 2011 contract that Holiefield negotiated.

Holiefield has been a UAW member since 1973, when he went to work at Chrysler’s Jefferson assembly plant in Detroit.

A longtime political and community activist, Holiefield sits on the NAACP’s national board of directors and the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

He did not respond to e-mails seeking additional comment. A UAW spokeswoman did not return calls about his retirement.

“I will always be a part of this union. I will always leave the light on,” Holiefield said in the union’s statement.

In 2009, Holiefield was with then-UAW President Ron Gettelfinger in Washington, D.C., as President Barack Obama’s auto task force laid the groundwork to restructure Chrysler through bankruptcy.

“Without General’s leadership, there wouldn’t be a Chrysler today,” Bob King said in the union’s statement. “During the nation’s great economic crisis and its horrendous effect on the auto industry, General Holiefield demonstrated the leadership that helped guide Chrysler back to profitability and on to the great success it has achieved in the marketplace.”

Jimmy Settles, vice president of the UAW’s Ford department, told the Free Press earlier this week that he expects to be a nominee for a third term.